Green Ideas to Save Energy

Water takes electricity to process, pump, and heat.

As far as electricity goes, the electric treadmill is one of the most foolish devices ever created. Running a machine that has to work alongside the user to expend the fat accumulated in his or her fat cells creates a double energy sinkhole; energy is drawn from fat to accomplish nothing (the user is running in place) and the machine draws kilowatts from power companies to allow the user to do so.

Eight light minutes away, our solar system's resident star has been fueling our planet from photosynthetic life, up the food chain, since life began. Aside from the obvious application of solar panels, there are two basic ways that we can use the sun to our advantage - heating and lighting.

When in use, the home oven is one of the biggest power consumers that you own. A few adjustments to cooking habits can go a long way.

The average American spends roughly 4 hours, or 1/6 (4/24 = 1/6) of his or her time, watching TV every day. A person living 80 years, then, will have spent slightly over 13 years (1/6 * 80 = 13.3) doing nothing but watching the tube. Even more alarming is the 8.5 hours a day our increasingly technologically immersed youth spends on electronic media from the television to videogames to non-productive uses of the computer (gaming, shopping, chatting, etc.). In addition to some of the health questions this raises, all of these activities have an impact on your electricity consumption. Do your best to exercise moderation when using these devices.

Clothes dryers work by drawing in air from your house, heating it, and then expelling it through an exhaust tube. Where the air is expelled is controlled by where the exhaust tube leads. A tube attached to a vent pumps warm air outside every time the machine is operated. In the winter, this is unfavorable since both the house's warmth and the electricity the dryer uses to run are being ventilated outside. In the summer this problem reverses itself. Homes cooled with A/C units will be expending unnecessary electricity as the two appliances will be in conflict with one another - warming and cooling inside the same space.

Unless you use a special vent (see below), a drying machine should be disconnected from the outside during the winter. When detaching it, remember to insulate the tube from the cold temperatures outside. To do this, clog it with some clothes or towels. Reattach the tube to the vent when the weather becomes warmer (though do not forget to remove the insulating clog from the tube). Or leave the tube detached from the outside year round and use a clothesline in the summer.

Packaging products helps ensure freshness and purity and gives companies a place to tell consumers what their product does, what it contains, etc.. There are some cases, however, in which packaging is used beyond what is needed to be useful for the above purposes. Sunsweet sells prunes in containers in which each prune is swaddled in its own individual wrapper; different cereal companies market samplers of their cereals in colorful "fun packs" with each representative flavor getting its own box that contains a single serving. In buying products like these you are confirming to companies that fanciful and superfluous packaging sells; don't send this message. Instead choose "plain and simple" products that show an effort has been made to conserve packaging material. These will 1) cost less because prices will reflect the cost of the final product, and companies that do not over-package will have lower costs that those that do since they have to buy the material to package, and 2) less packaging means less is thrown away, which means fewer resources are wasted and less material ends up in a landfill.